In my U.S. Pat. No. 4,404,775, which issued on Sep. 20, 1983, I disclosed a new and useful rain water deflector device by means of which rain water falling from a roof on a building may be made to be deposited into a rain gutter affixed to the building, while leaves, pine needles and other debris carried by the water are caused to fall to the ground by being jettisoned outward past the outer edge of the gutter. By this means, the gutter may be kept substantially free of accumulations of debris, obviating the necessity of cleaning the gutters in order to keep them functioning as desired. According to the teachings of that patent, these deflector devices function by providing means by which the gravitation induced kinetic forces present in the masses of water are kept within the ability of the surface tension of the water to cause the water to follow the curved lower surface of the deflector devices along a path of travel into the gutter. Several examples are presented of embodiments which implement those principles. Included among the means by which they do so are longitudinal ribs formed in the flat top surface of the deflector devices to form weir-like water flow interrupters which reduce the kinetic force of the water, bracket supports which cause the deflectors to present a shallower slope to the oncoming water than does the associated roof, and wettable deflector surfaces which cause the water to "sheet" or spread into laminar, rather than rivuletted, flow patterns and reduce the kinetic force per unit area by increasing the area over which a given unit of kinetic force is spread.
It has been found that some roof configurations with which embodiments of that invention are used present special difficulties for which specialized approaches are advantageous. For example, a roof "valley", (i.e., the intersection between intersecting, sloping roof sections), effectively concentrates into a single flow path water that has come down to it from higher portions of each of its constituent sections. Since the valleys typically are sloped, water from the larger areas at the top of the roof sections concentrates in increasing amounts in the stream path created by the valley itself as it goes down the valley. The resulting concentration of the mass of water is counter to the teachings of my U.S. Pat. No. 4,404,775 where embodiments are disclosed which serve to de-concentrate accumulations of water from rivulets into laminar or sheet-like configurations. Thus, water has been found to overflow deflector devices according to that patent when they are positioned at the foot of such valleys. In some cases, the concentrations of water, and therefore the kinetic forces which gravity produces in them, are so great that even a barrier plate across the valley substantially at right angles to the water flow path may prove ineffectual. The water colliding with such a barrier may become so turbulent that some may overflow the barrier, and even though some of the water may be redirected to the ends of the barrier, some of that may discharge from the ends of the barrier in concentrations so massive that water still overshoots the curved surface of the associated deflectors. Additionally, such barrier type devices themselves tend to act as traps for some of the debris being transported by the water, further disrupting any laminar flow or sheeting generation that might otherwise occur.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide means to enhance the operation of rain gutter deflector devices.
Another object of this invention is to provide means to satisfy the foregoing objective by causing improved laminar flow of concentrations of rain water.
Still another object of this invention is to provide means to satisfy the foregoing objectives that is adapted for retrofitting to existing installations.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide means to satisfy the foregoing objectives that also reduces the amount of debris accumulating on the face of the associated deflector to the detriment of desired water flow patterns.
Another object of this invention is to provide means to satisfy the foregoing objectives that minimizes the effect that the presence of debris has on the desired patterns of water flow across the system.